BUSINESS OBSERVER

+ Longboat Key Club to unveil new tavern
The Longboat Key Club and Resort’s The Tavern and Whiskey Bar, located in the spot of the former Harbourside Grille, is lset to open the first week of February. The menu will feature dishes made with local ingredients from 30 neighboring farms, ranches and fishermen.

The restaurant will continue this “Farm to Table” ideology and will feature different area farms weekly. There will also be house-made smoked and cured bacon, salamis, Tasso ham, a selection of seasonally inspired pickled vegetables, Ale Gar mustard, smoked horseradish cheese, hand-churned butter, house-made jellies, marmalades and honey butter.

The whiskey selection will feature more than 100 whiskies from around the world. The beer selection will contain local breweries and microbreweries. There will also be a cocktail menu and wine list featuring wines from California, Oregon and Washington State.

+ Save Our Seabirds now charging admission
Save Our Seabirds’ donation box was looking pretty bare, so as of Jan. 2, the bird rescue and rehab facility started charging admission.

“We had to, in order to try to cover some operational costs,” said Suzanne Ripka, office manager of Save Our Seabirds. “It doesn’t cover it all, but it helps. We still rely heavily on donations and volunteers.”
An adult admission is $5, and admission for children ages 4 to 17 is $3. By charging these rates, they also hope to clear up the assumption that Save Our Seabirds is a a part of Mote.

+ Jude Connally store opens on St. Armands
Jude Zimmerman’s designs have been featured in boutiques around the country, but St. Armands is home to the first Jude Connally Boutique. Jude Connally is a women’s dress store featuring modern but classic, original prints in bold colors, which are easy to care for. The store is located at 411 A St. Armands Circle, second level, and is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

+ Sarasota Yacht Club is certified clean
Sarasota Yacht Club is clean. In fact, it will be the 250th clean marina in the state and the seventh in Sarasota County for the measures it has taken for environmental protection. The certification came from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Specifically, the yacht club addressed waste management, storm-water control, spill prevention and emergency preparedness issues.

“Our members share our interest in engaging in environmentally sound practices, and we all recognize the role we play in protecting Florida’s waterways,” says Bernhard G. Kloppenburg, general manager of the Sarasota Yacht Club.

Sarasota Yacht Club members and guests will celebrate the certification with a ceremony. Gary Colecchio, the southwest district director of the Department of Environmental Protection, will award the club with the official plaque and flag.

+ Key Club hires new staff members
The Longboat Key Club and Resort has hired two new employees. It welcomes new fitness manager Heather Hackett and new director of IT, Andre Mros.

Hackett has a background in health and fitness, including a bachelor’s in business education and a youth fitness trainer certification from International Sports Sciences Association; and she also competes in local and national bodybuilding competitions.

Mros is from Berlin. He is a graduate of Humboldt University in Berlin, and taught natural science at a polytechnical school there. He has 20 years’ experience in system engineering, architecture and development of key infrastructure and network technologies.